Shell Programming in Unix, Linux and OS X: (Developer's Library)

Shell Programming in Unix, Linux and OS X is a thoroughly updated revision of Kochan and Wood’s classic Unix Shell Programming tutorial. Following the methodology of the original text, the book focuses on the POSIX standard shell, and teaches you how to develop programs in this useful programming environment, taking full advantage of the underlying power of Unix and Unix-like operating systems. After a quick review of Unix utilities, the book’s authors take you step-by-step through the process of building shell scripts, debugging them, and understanding how they work within the shell’s environment. All major features of the shell are covered, and the large number of practical examples make it easy for you to build shell scripts for your particular applications. The book also describes the major features of the Korn and Bash shells.   Learn how to… Take advantage of the many utilities provided in the Unix system Write powerful shell scripts Use the shell’s built-in decision-making and looping constructs Use the shell’s powerful quoting mechanisms Make the most of the shell’s built-in history and command editing capabilities Use regular expressions with Unix commands Take advantage of the special features of the Korn and Bash shells Identify the major differences between versions of the shell language Customize the way your Unix system responds to you Set up your shell environment Make use of functions Debug scripts Contents at a Glance 1  A Quick Review of the Basics 2  What Is the Shell? 3  Tools of the Trade 4  And Away We Go 5  Can I Quote You on That? 6  Passing Arguments 7  Decisions, Decisions 8  ‘Round and ‘Round She Goes 9  Reading and Printing Data 10 Your Environment 11 More on Parameters 12 Loose Ends 13 Rolo Revisited 14 Interactive and Nonstandard Shell Features A Shell Summary B For More Information

Table of Contents:
1 A Quick Review of the Basics     Some Basic Commands         Displaying the Date and Time: The date Command         Finding Out Who’s Logged In: The who Command         Echoing Characters: The echo Command     Working with Files         Listing Files: The ls Command         Displaying the Contents of a File: The cat Command         Counting the Number of Words in a File: The wc Command         Command Options         Making a Copy of a File: The cp Command         Renaming a File: The mv Command         Removing a File: The rm Command     Working with Directories         The Home Directory and Pathnames         Displaying Your Working Directory: The pwd Command         Changing Directories: The cd Command         More on the ls Command         Creating a Directory: The mkdir Command         Copying a File from One Directory to Another         Moving Files Between Directories         Linking Files: The ln Command         Removing a Directory: The rmdir Command     Filename Substitution         The Asterisk         Matching Single Characters     Filename Nuances         Spaces in Filenames         Other Weird Characters     Standard Input/Output, and I/O Redirection         Standard Input and Standard Output         Output Redirection         Input Redirection     Pipes         Filters     Standard Error     More on Commands         Typing More Than One Command on a Line         Sending a Command to the Background         The ps Command     Command Summary 2 What Is the Shell?     The Kernel and the Utilities     The Login Shell     Typing Commands to the Shell     The Shell’s Responsibilities         Program Execution         Variable and Filename Substitution         I/O Redirection         Hooking up a Pipeline         Environment Control         Interpreted Programming Language 3 Tools of the Trade     Regular Expressions         Matching Any Character: The Period (.)         Matching the Beginning of the Line: The Caret (^)         Matching the End of the Line: The Dollar Sign $         Matching a Character Set: The [...] Construct         Matching Zero or More Characters: The Asterisk (*)         Matching a Precise Number of Subpatterns: \{...\}         Saving Matched Characters: \(...\)     cut         The -d and -f Options     paste         The -d Option         The -s Option     sed         The -n Option         Deleting Lines     tr         The -s Option         The -d Option     grep         Regular Expressions and grep         The -v Option         The -l Option         The -n Option     sort         The -u Option         The -r Option         The -o Option         The -n Option         Skipping Fields         The -t Option         Other Options     uniq         The -d Option         Other Options 4 And Away We Go     Command Files         Comments     Variables         Displaying the Values of Variables         Undefined Variables Have the Null Value         Filename Substitution and Variables         The ${variable} Construct     Built-in Integer Arithmetic 5 Can I Quote You on That?     The Single Quote     The Double Quote     The Backslash         Using the Backslash for Continuing Lines         The Backslash Inside Double Quotes     Command Substitution         The Back Quote         The $(...) Construct         The expr Command 6 Passing Arguments     The $# Variable     The $* Variable     A Program to Look Up Someone in the Phone Book     A Program to Add Someone to the Phone Book     A Program to Remove Someone from the Phone Book         ${n}     The shift Command 7 Decisions, Decisions     Exit Status         The $? Variable     The test Command         String Operators         An Alternative Format for test         Integer Operators         File Operators         The Logical Negation Operator !         The Logical AND Operator -a         Parentheses         The Logical OR Operator -o     The else Construct     The exit Command         A Second Look at the rem Program     The elif Construct         Yet Another Version of rem     The case Command         Special Pattern-Matching Characters         The -x Option for Debugging Programs         Back to the case     The Null Command :     The && and || Constructs 8 'Round and 'Round She Goes     The for Command         The $@ Variable         The for Without the List     The while Command     The until Command     More on Loops         Breaking Out of a Loop         Skipping the Remaining Commands in a Loop         Executing a Loop in the Background         I/O Redirection on a Loop         Piping Data into and out of a Loop         Typing a Loop on One Line     The getopts Command 9 Reading and Printing Data     The read Command         A Program to Copy Files         Special echo Escape Characters         An Improved Version of mycp         A Final Version of mycp         A Menu-Driven Phone Program         The $$ Variable and Temporary Files         The Exit Status from read     The printf Command 10 Your Environment     Local Variables         Subshells     Exported Variables         export -p     PS1 and PS2     HOME     PATH     Your Current Directory         CDPATH     More on Subshells         The .Command         The exec Command         The (...) and { ...; } Constructs         Another Way to Pass Variables to a Subshell     Your .profile File     The TERM Variable     The TZ Variable 11 More on Parameters     Parameter Substitution         ${parameter}         ${parameter:-value}         ${parameter:=value}         ${parameter:?value}         ${parameter:+value}         Pattern Matching Constructs         ${#variable}     The $0 Variable     The set Command         The -x Option         set with No Arguments         Using set to Reassign Positional Parameters         The -- Option         Other Options to set     The IFS Variable         The readonly Command         The unset Command 12 Loose Ends     The eval Command     The wait Command         The $! Variable     The trap Command         trap with No Arguments         Ignoring Signals         Resetting Traps     More on I/O         <&- and >&-         In-line Input Redirection         Shell Archives     Functions         Removing a Function Definition         The return Command     The type Command 13 Rolo Revisited     Data Formatting Considerations     rolo     add     lu     display     rem     change     listall     Sample Output 14 Interactive and Nonstandard Shell Features     Getting the Right Shell     The ENV File     Command-Line Editing     Command History     The vi Line Edit Mode         Accessing Commands from Your History     The emacs Line Edit Mode         Accessing Commands from Your History     Other Ways to Access Your History         The history Command         The fc Command         The r Command     Functions         Local Variables         Automatically Loaded Functions     Integer Arithmetic         Integer Types         Numbers in Different Bases     The alias Command         Removing Aliases     Arrays     Job Control         Stopped Jobs and the fg and bg Commands     Miscellaneous Features         Other Features of the cd Command         Tilde Substitution         Order of Search     Compatibility Summary Appendixes     A Shell Summary B For More Information

About the Author :
Stephen Kochan is the author or co-author of several best-selling titles on Unix and the C language, including Programming in C, Programming in Objective-C, Topics in C Programming, and Exploring the Unix System. He is a former software consultant for AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he developed and taught classes on Unix and C programming. Patrick Wood is the CTO of the New Jersey location of Electronics for Imaging. He was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories when he met Mr. Kochan in 1985. Together they founded Pipeline Associates, Inc., a Unix consulting firm, where he was vice president. They co-authored Exploring the Unix System, Unix System Security, Topics in C Programming, and Unix Shell Programming.